Disney receives bilingual complaints for hiring Cai Xukun as the promotional ambassador for The Lion King

The Lion King, which carries the feelings of countless fans, was finally released yesterday (July 12). As of 12:00 today, the film has achieved a box office of 149 million yuan.

On July 10, the upcoming Disney movie "The Lion King" released multiple posters on social media. Among them, a poster of Cai Xukun and Simba together sparked heated discussions among netizens. Some fans of "The Lion King" even wrote a letter of complaint directly to Disney.

Daily Economic News reporters noticed that this is not the first time that the promotion of imported blockbusters has been complained by fans, and it is not the first time that imported films have tried to use traffic stars and famous stars to promote. With the rise of the Chinese film market, finding a popular local star to cooperate with marketing has become a "routine" for Hollywood to please the Chinese market, but traffic stars have inevitably become a double-edged sword. So, is it worth it to invite traffic stars to "assist"?

Cai Xukun endorsed "The Lion King" and fans sent a bilingual complaint letter to Disney

Even before the film was released, fans who were looking forward to "The Lion King" could not remain calm.

On July 10, the upcoming Disney film "The Lion King" released multiple posters on social media, sparking heated discussions among netizens.

In this promotional poster for "The Lion King", Cai Xukun becomes the promotional ambassador of the movie. He stands on the right side of the poster and stands side by side with Simba. The topic under the picture is "Grow up as bravely as Simba" and @蔡徐坤.

The reporter noticed that as early as July 9, Cai Xukun had posted a Weibo with the topic "Grow up bravely like Simba", generously promoting "The Lion King". As of press time, Cai Xukun's Weibo post has been forwarded 265,000 times, with 257,000 comments and 346,000 likes.

However, fans of "The Lion King" are not buying into Disney's promotion.

Many fans believe that the "traffic star" Cai Xukun and Simba in The Lion King have nothing in common, and forcibly linking the two is an extremely embarrassing promotional method. Some fans even wrote a complaint letter in both Chinese and English to Disney.

Weibo user @Vocarious2020 published a letter he wrote to Disney titled "Complaint about Disney China's Marketing Strategy for The Lion King". In the letter, the netizen proposed, "I implore Disney China to cancel Cai Xukun's advertisement and replace it with other stars." However, on July 11, the netizen posted on Weibo again, saying that "the original post was deleted", and then attached the original text of the open letter.

On the other hand, Cai Xukun's fans posted their tickets to The Lion King to show their support for him. Many left comments saying "Of course I have to go see it if Cai Xukun recommends it", and one fan even said "I bought six tickets in one go".

As one of the most popular traffic stars in 2018, Cai Xukun undoubtedly has a strong fan appeal. Daily Economic News reporters noted that as of now, Cai Xukun has 25.51 million fans on Weibo. Aiman ​​Data June Endorsement Effect Ranking shows that in the endorsement effect list from May 20 to June 20, 2019, Cai Xukun ranked third, and the endorsement effect index of the Prada 2019 Fall/Winter Men's Wear Series endorsed by him was 95.91.

However, "fame brings troubles". In 2018, Cai Xukun's Weibo post "reposted over 100 million times" attracted attention to the fake traffic data of celebrities. In June this year, the "Xingyuan" APP, which helped Cai Xukun create 100 million Weibo reposts, was closed down. The People's Daily also commented on Cai Xukun's fraud.

This time, Cai Xukun was involved in controversy for his promotion of "The Lion King". Previously, Cai Xukun's becoming an NBA ambassador also caused an uproar among fans. Many fans and netizens said: "Cai Xukun is an idol and his temperament is more feminine. He is not qualified to endorse the NBA."

Is it worth it to use celebrity marketing to please the Chinese market?

In fact, not only "The Lion King", many imported blockbusters prefer "Chinese traffic" when marketing.

The reporter found out through public data and Maoyan Professional Edition that many imported blockbusters choose to cooperate with Chinese stars in their publicity and promotion. In addition to the traditional cooperation modes of finding Chinese stars to dub animated films or Chinese singers to sing Chinese promotional songs, Chinese stars are also given various titles such as "China Promotion Ambassador" and "Chief Content Recommendation Officer". For example, when "Batman v Superman" was released in 2016, the then popular Li Yifeng was found to serve as the "China Viewing Ambassador", and when "Blade Runner 2049" was released, Wang Kai served as the "Chief Content Recommendation Officer".

With the rise of the Chinese film market, finding a popular local star to cooperate with marketing has become a "routine" for Hollywood to please the Chinese market. However, fans often raise questions: "What did XXX participate in the film?" "What is his relationship with the film?"

Different film marketing professionals have said that Hollywood movies seek Chinese local "traffic" endorsements and promotions in order to quickly gain popularity among fans. After all, even without stars, real fans will go to the cinema. Take Disney as an example. The Lighthouse Professional Edition shows that female audiences are the absolute main audience in films such as "Dumbo", "Aladdin" and "Toy Story 4". Therefore, Zheng Yunlong, Chen Weiting and He Jiong, who are very popular with female audiences, were invited to promote the films.

However, since movie fans and star fans are fundamentally not the same groups, contradictions and conflicts seem inevitable in the process of moving from one "circle" to another.

For example, at the Marvel 10th Anniversary Celebration in April last year, the organizers invited domestic singers such as Zhang Jie, Jane Zhang, Joey Yung, and Aaron Yan to perform. However, Marvel fans who had queued all night for Robert Downey Jr. were not happy with the idea of ​​local stars taking the "C position". Dissatisfied fans flooded the comment section of Marvel Studios' official blog, forcing the company to apologize.

The reporter noticed that sometimes stars may face the problem of "not being able to adapt to the local environment" when promoting a film. After the release of the live-action posters of Zhou Dongyu and Jing Boran for the sentimental film "Spirited Away" released in June this year, it also caused widespread misunderstanding among fans about the filming of a live-action movie.

In addition, in most cases, the marketing of the film seems to be only suitable for "icing on the cake" for the box office, but not "helping in times of trouble". Take "Blade Runner 2049" in 2017, which invited many stars such as Wang Kai, Ouyang Nana, Yi Xiaoxing, Zhang Xueying, and Zhang Jingchu to endorse the film, for example. The film only had a box office of 76 million in the end, ranking 98th in the box office that year.